Episode 047 - Death Is Nothing To Us

Welcome to Episode Forty-Seven of Lucretius Today. I am your host Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we'll walk you through the six books of Lucretius' poem, and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers, and everyone here is a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book, "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt.<br /><br />For anyone who is not familiar with our podcast, please check back to Episode One for a discussion of our goals and our ground rules. If you have any question about that, please be sure to contact us at Epicureanfriends.com for more information. In today's episode, we will cover roughly lines 830- 930 from Book 3 of the Latin Text. The topic will be that death is nothing to us, as we complete the chapter with a series of arguments that explain how we can reconcile ourselves to the fact of death.<br /><br />Podcast 47 - Death is nothing to us<br /><br />Browne 1743:<br /><br />Death therefore is nothing, nor is it of the consequence of a rush to us, since the nature of the soul is certainly mortal; and as we were no way concerned at what formerly happened when the Carthaginians mustered their armies on all sides against us, and all the world trembled and shook with the dreadful alarms of war, and it was undecided under the power of which empire the land and the sea, and all things here below should be subjected; so, when we shall be no more, when the separation happens between the soul and the body, which together make up our being, nothing shall befall us when that shall nowhere be, nor affect our sense; not tho’ the earth be swallowed up by the sea, and the sea confounded with the heavens above. But if the nature of the soul, and the powers of it, when divided from the body, had the faculty to think, this would signify nothing to us, who are formed and compounded by a strict and